


Seven Minutes

by anomieow



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Christianity, College AU, M/M, Modern AU, Premature Ejaculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:16:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29326863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomieow/pseuds/anomieow
Summary: In the cafeteria, John Irving confects a joyless salad out of dark greens, quinoa, and hard-boiled egg, over which he trickles a modicum of balsamic vinaigrette. Then, once he and Sol have sat down and Sol’s about to tear into his chicken-crisp sandwich, John bows his head and thanks Jesus aloud for His bounty. What in the fuck.“What about that Dr. Pepper, John?” Sol asks. “I didn’t hear you thank Him for the Dr. Pepper.”“That’s because it’s not part of His bounty,” John says serenely, spearing an ear of kale with his white plastic fork.“I thought y’all didn’t drink pop anyway.”“Those are the Mormons.”“You’re not a Mormon?”John’s eyes widen. “I’d rather die, Sol.”
Relationships: John Irving/Solomon Tozer
Comments: 9
Kudos: 42
Collections: The Terror Rarepair Week 2021





	Seven Minutes

In the cafeteria, John Irving confects a joyless salad out of dark greens, quinoa, and hard-boiled egg, over which he trickles a modicum of balsamic vinaigrette. Then, once he and Sol have sat down and Sol’s about to tear into his chicken-crisp sandwich, John bows his head and thanks Jesus aloud for His bounty. What in the fuck.

“What about that Dr. Pepper, John?” Sol asks. “I didn’t hear you thank Him for the Dr. Pepper.” 

“That’s because it’s not part of His bounty,” John says serenely, spearing an ear of kale with his white plastic fork. 

“I thought y’all didn’t drink pop anyway.”

“Those are the Mormons.”

“You’re not a Mormon?”

John’s eyes widen. “I’d rather die, Sol.”

Sol laughs. He’s so damned earnest about it, earnest and intense, like there’s nothing else to him than Jesus and his half-assed trips to the gym, for he’s just fit enough to make it clear he goes but nothing impressive to suggest he’s serious about it. In fact, he’s half-curious to see what’s under that charcoal gray polo shirt, the cargo shorts that fit a little too short and snug in the oblivious way of a scout leader’s. He can envision him sitting on a log around a campfire with a bunch of kiddos, strumming “Kumbaya” on a second-hand guitar. Big grin on his face, swaying side-to-side. 

“What do you do for fun, anyway?” he asks, his laughing smile still lingering. 

“Well,” he says earnestly, “I enjoy bouldering, watercolors. And I’m big into Bible study.”

“Oh, no shit.”

“I would prefer, Sol, that you refrain from profanity around me.”

“Gosh, ok. I’ll try.” He makes a mental note to use at least fifteen percent more curse words than normal in his presence. He might even blaspheme a little more, though, being weirdly haunted himself by the possibility of A Very Big Sky Dad, he won’t push that one. 

The first time Sol saw John, coming in flustered and late on the first day of Professor Bridgens’ comparative Christianities class, Sol was in fact convinced that he was heaven-sent. Because if there’s anything on God’s green earth better than a slenderly buff dark-haired, hazel-eyed man, Sol ain’t seen it yet. But then he opened his mouth and made it clear he wasn’t near as much fun as he looked. All semester he’s enjoyed drawing him into debate, watching him get pissed off (whole round, angelic face turning pink) and then backing off with a shrug before it got personal or nasty. For he was above that, but John maybe wasn’t, and anyway, he didn’t want to actually alienate the guy. He liked him—it just confounded him how someone so clearly intelligent could be so blindly, blithely religious. And then of course Professor Bridgens, the canny old fucker, had paired them for the final project, an exhaustive research paper on one specific Protestant sect during one specific historical period.

“So, this paper,” Sol says. 

“Yeah.”

“You have any ideas?”

John looks delighted as he pulls a binder out of his backpack, section dividers color-coded. “Several,” he grins. “I took the liberty of preparing a guide to every sect discussed in class. That’s _this_ binder—hold on, I’ve got one with notes categorized by historical context—”

“Oh my god, dude, I was thinking we could just, like, come up with whatever.”

John looks vexed. “Why wouldn’t you want to pick something you’re passionate about?”

Sol shrugs. He’d like to feign complete apathy but to tell the truth he finds this stuff fascinating. In fact, it’s all equally compelling to him, having been at one point quite religious himself without any of the joy associated with it. He’d never tell John this—he’d be a real pain-in-the-ass if he thought his proselytizing might get him anywhere. But what he’d loved about the church, he realized around the same time he realized he loved dick, was not the faith or the passion or the joy but the structure of it, the rituals. The safety, the predictability. And what pleased him most was the comforting authority of an infallible deity. The moment he realized the transparency of his own interest, he could no longer buy into it. And so he’d left the church without fully relinquishing his faith. But religion as a concept, and as an historical force, still compels him immensely. Equally compelling is how John chews his lip as he pores over the pages of his ridiculous binder.

Sol crosses his arms and nudges his calf with his foot under the table. John jumps, glares. “What are _you_ passionate about, John?” 

***

After lunch, they head across the concrete plaza to the library. It’s one of the oldest buildings on campus, an austere Georgian building of golden brick, with a fountain out front that only runs on temperate days because students get to splashing around in it when it gets too hot out. It’s on today, though, sending up its white jets around a brass statue in the center of a bear on its hind legs, not looking threatening or mighty so much as confused, genially curious. 

“Do you like bears, John?” Sol asks him as he lights up a cigarette. 

“I guess,” John says. “Grizzlies are ok.”

“No, like Professor Bridgens.”

John cocks his head, puzzled.

“Never mind,” Sol laughs, smoke sailing from his open lips. 

John is relieved to get out of the heat into the canned chill of the library. They mount the spiral stairs to the third floor, where John stakes a table out in front of the big window, where you can see the whole sky out above the college lawn down toward where it rolls toward the neighborhood of Greek houses. He thinks they might sit down there and outline their paper, maybe establish which of the Calvinist sects they’re writing about. But Sol suggests heading straight into the dark, narrow stacks, awful shadowy as it’s getting toward evening, and John dreads to follow. Not sure why. It might have to do with how he can’t stop looking at his dimples when he laughs, can’t stop wondering what it’d be like to comb his finger through those sand-brown curls. _Bad, John. Watch yourself._

Look, it’s not like John’s not aware of the sinful nature of his thoughts. He just tries to ignore them, is all. If he can ignore them long enough and hard enough, ignore—for example—his urge to thrust his face into the side of Sol’s neck and inhale the smell of him, suck up the taste of him: he smells like Axe body spray, “Apollo” scent, if he recalls his own days of ill-advised dabbling. Freshman year, awful rash. He’s since gone back to Irish Spring, which was good enough for his dad and his dad’s dad before him and is cheaper besides. Anyway, would he also be able to scent a little sweat, maybe some of just, you know, that guy smell… _oh my gosh, John,_ he scolds himself, _you just quit it._ He knows all about his own shortcomings, the sins he’s committed in his heart and also in the shower, but he just—tells himself no. If he tells himself no long enough, Jesus will stop tempting him and it’ll be fine. 

He follows Sol down a narrow end row that terminates against a wall. 

“Here,” Sol says, his calves flexing ( _gosh dang it, John, quit!_ ) as he pops up on tiptoes to pull a couple books off the shelf. “Here’s a couple books about the early Calvinists?” He feigns a casual tone, but he’d known exactly where the books were.

“You know this section pretty well,” John notes, “for not caring about this class.”

Sol grins. “I never said I didn’t care about the class. I’m just not all fucking serious about it.”

“What’s even your major?” He asks, all annoyed.

“History,” Sol says. “I told you that.”

“Yeah, but what are you specializing in?”

“Dunno.” He hands John one of the books and tucks the other under his arm. “These are probably the best two. Not too late to do the anabaptists, you know. Get those obscurity points. And it’s gonna be hard to write just thirty pages about Calvinism, which is, frankly, one of the most complex and revolutionary doctrines—” He catches himself, grins. “I mean, I guess. But whatever you wanna do, bro.”

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

John rolls his eyes and walks away, back out into the sunny atrium, and sits down with the book on his knee. Secretly he thinks Calvinism is stupid. What’s even the point? He thinks it’s even weirder how far the puritans took it. The Elect and whatnot. He envisions frowning men in weird hats, like folded cloth napkins at an expensive restaurant. Or maybe he’s thinking of the pilgrims more generally. Ugh. The words twist and blur as he tries to read them. It was easier at the beginning of the semester, when Sol just seemed like a big, dumb jock. Before he opened his mouth. 

Because the thing is, he’s smart. He’s smart like John wishes he were. John has never gotten less than an A in his life (except for one B+—thanks a lot, Mrs. Franklin, you mean old witch) but that is because he is impeccably organized. He puts ideas where they go and gets by by swiftly retrieving them. That’s one kind of intelligence, he knows, but his brain doesn’t blaze, an animal bristling and sweating, like Sol’s does. The ability to see the sparks disparate ideas give off when they collide—that’s something altogether different. Sol could lecture, Sol could write books. But Sol just wants to be a jerk about his Dr. Pepper habit and make weird jokes about bears or whatever, so to heck with him. John doesn’t realize how mad he is until Sol slides into place between him and the window, the ruddy blaze of the setting sun, and stretches side-wise, arms flung up over his head. The hem of his shirt lifts to reveal an inch of tanned hip.

John slams the book shut. “Do you freakin’ mind, Sol?”

“What the fuck, bro?”

“Forget it. I’m gonna grab this book and just make some notes, maybe an outline, and we’ll meet back up later.”

“What’s your rush?” He sidles up to stand between John’s spread knees. “Bible study?”

John crosses his arms, sullenly silent, his gaze slanted sideways. He’s aware he looks like a pouting child but he can’t very well look at the man, not now that he’s close enough to smell his dudebro body spray and stale cigarette smoke and, dang it, it should be gross, and on anyone else it would be, but it’s _him_ , it’s stupid freakin’ Sol, and when he sits down on the arm of the chair to kiss him, he lets him. He has the fleeting impression of it being warm and really, really… nice. Just really super nice. Now, John’s no stranger to kissing. He’s played Spin The Bottle like twice at Sonshine Bible Camp, and Seven Minutes in Heaven once, during which he lasted about ninety seconds with Becky Pfaltzgraff. It had felt like mouthing warm, raw chicken. 

Anyway, this is different. It feels dangerously like something he should be doing, like something he never wants to stop doing. But then Sol pulls back and, grinning down at him, says, “You’d better get back and get that outline drawn up.” And then he just leaves. 

John realizes, panicked, that the library is due to close in just a few minutes. He imagines toddling down to the circulation desk with his massive boner and a book about predestination, feels himself turn pink. Breathes deep and tries to think about kissing Becky Pfaltzgraff instead, her breath like wintermint gum and her sugary berry body spray. Definitely not the same.

***

Sol bicycles home in the deepening spring twilight trying not to feel as buoyant as he feels. John’s going to text him any minute, telling him that he misunderstood, that he misinterpreted a series of faint—nigh illegible—signals. He’s planning how he’ll play said kiss off as a joke, as something he did just to mess with him, as he pulls up to the small house he shares with Neil and, lately, Neil’s boyfriend Billy. He stows his bike in the narrow mud patch that passes as a backyard in this neighborhood of broke students and eccentric retirees and shuffles inside, flip phone clutched in his sweaty palm. Waiting for it to buzz.

He crosses the kitchen—of course the fucker hasn’t touched the Jenga tower of dishes in the sink—and walks into the living room to the sight of Neil and Billy playing Mario Kart. Sort of. Because Neil appears to also be dry-humping Billy from behind, his hand up his shirt. The room is dim and sweet with marijuana smoke.

“You’ve got your own room for a fucking reason,” Sol grouses as he checks the ash tray for a smokeable nub. No luck. 

“Can’t play in there,” Neil says. “How’d your thing go, the thing with what’s his face? Billy knows him, don’t you, babe?” 

Billy shrugs. He looks like a cartoon stork, like the kind that deliver babies in old cartoons. “We were at Bible camp together like years ago,” he says in his precise, hassled way. “The only reason I even remember him is because we were playing seven minutes in heaven and it freaked him out, like, so much. He started crying. And then he said it was just allergies. Weird kid.”

“Whatever, dude,” Sol says, inexplicably offended on John’s behalf. “I’m sure you were totally normal.”

“Everybody’s an asshole at that age,” Neil puts in, fishing out a cigarette.

“Yeah,” Sol agrees, wondering not for the first time how Neil, who has no job and long ago pissed off his family, pays for his own existence—organic vegan diet, a pack a day, really good skin. “Most of us grow out of it, though.” 

Unconsciously, he checks his phone again. No text. Nothing all night. But then sometime early in the morning he feels a buzz beneath his pillow. He pulls his phone out and squints at the glyphs on the screen: “i hav nmites libraru 2dat qq” 

“?” He fires back.

Thirty seconds later his phone is ringing. He stares at it in horror—he hasn’t even had his first Red Bull yet. 

“You can always text me,” he grumbles as he flips his phone open.

“ _I_ can’t really text anyone, as you can see.”

“Valid. What the fuck were you trying to say?”

“I made up some notes. Wanted to know if you maybe wanted to meet at the library again.”

“I mean, I’d invite you over but my roommate’s a dick.”

“Yeah. Library’s probably best anyway.”

There’s a heavy pause. Then, for no other reason than to lift it, Sol laughs. “Oh, yeah. Sorry about that yesterday. I was just fucking with you.”

“I figured.” Another difficult pause. “So what time?”

 _Shit, shit, shit._ Now he has to make either un-fuck with him, which will feel an awful lot like the emotional equivalent to sticking his finger into the mouth of an automatic stapler, or fuck with him all the more energetically. _Yeah,_ he thinks to himself as he hangs up, _We’ll go with that._ Then he takes a shower, during which he definitely doesn’t think about John Irving’s fingers curled in his hair as he sheathes himself balls-deep in his throat. The little noises he’d make. Or big. He definitely doesn’t wonder if he’s a virgin, definitely doesn’t contemplate what kind of faces he makes when he jerks off. None of these vivid thoughts cross his mind, not once. 

***

Sol nods as he strides up. He’s come fresh from the gym, hair dripping in the sun, shoulders of his tight white tee damp. Of course he does. The little curlicues of his—it’s a beard, John supposes, though it lacks the will toward self-assertion that the rest of him so amply possesses—gleam in the sun. He decides after a moment he likes it, though he’d been clean-shaven most of the semester, because it makes him look slightly more feral, which— _it just suits him, is all,_ John thinks lamely. 

John’s exhausted. He’d held the sapor of the kiss under his tongue for as long as he could taste it, cautiously giddy. Despite a busy evening (his weekly trip to Walmart, Skype Bible study with his students from China, his Tuesday night call to his mother, thirty minutes of yogilates performed with the perfunctory faithfulness of movement peculiar to those who enjoy very few things) he found time to jerk off twice, using up his whole monthly allowance of onanism in one go. But he felt weirdly ok about it, drying off his hair after his second shower of the night. (He liked to think Jesus gave him a little privacy in there as thanks for his never yet abusing himself on a Sunday.)

If he tried to put into words what he felt good about, what he felt hopeful for, he couldn’t come up with a danged thing. He doubted very much that it had meant anything to Sol anyway, who probably kissed cuter boys all the time. Maybe he’d felt bad for him, or was just teasing him somehow. Maybe it was a whim: Sol seemed the kind to act on those, knuckled and elbowed about by instinct and that thing John himself found ever-elusive, _a sense of fun._ He was sometimes fun after a few beers, but it’s not the same if you manufacture it, put it on like a costume.

Now he climbs the stairs behind Sol, watching the subtle flex of his shoulder blades in time with the swinging of his arms, determined not to bring the kiss up at all. Even though it was lovely—such a lovely thing, in fact, he’s a big and flustered kind of miserable about it. 

They settle in a carrel in a dim back corner, John pushing a little plastic-backed orange chair up to the corner. 

“Lemme see your notes,” Sol says. “And scoot in.” He tugs John’s chair in closer by bowing down to grab the leg, and the sudden dip of his head toward John’s lap makes him think the worst things.

“Sol, please—please don’t be in my space so much.”

Something in Sol’s eyes goes still and flat, and he nods. Maybe turns red, though can’t tell in this dark, untrafficked corner of the library if he does or if it’s just his imagination. Would serve him right if he did, the—the Jezebel. It’s a ridiculous way to think of him but his grudging mind can summon nothing else.

They bow their heads over John’s notes. Sol is intent, serious.

“I don’t know how you do it, dude,” he says when he’s done. “Your shit is so… together.”

John feels his cheeks go hot, though he can’t dismiss the suspicion that Sol is setting up an elaborate one-liner, so he thanks him in a weirdly flat voice.

Sol looks at him. He looks back. They’re looking at each other for several weird, warm, long seconds, and Sol’s expression is inscrutable the whole time.

“What?” John says irritably once it gets to where breathing feels weird. “What are you looking at?” 

“You, dumbass,” Sol says, grinning and slouching back in his chair with a shift of his legs so his bare calf rests against John’s. 

John sucks in a deep breath. The old, sweetly dry odor of books, Sol’s stupid body spray. He tries to think of unhot things because _jeez_ , John, it’s just his freaking leg. Might be an accident. But then his broad, muscular hand is on his thigh, his thumb perilously near his, his _thing_ , his dick (he thinks the word defiantly, like the opposite of praying), and when Sol says, “you wanna go kiss some more? ‘Necking’, the kids call it,” John nods and follows Sol into the nearest row of shelves.

Sol’s mouth is quick and hot this time, more sure of itself, and his hands are everywhere: the back of his head, untucking his polo shirt to feel out the spare musculature of his back, cupping round over his ribs—John whimpers helplessly into Sol’s open mouth at this and he feels Sol grin against him. 

“God,” he murmurs against his cheek, “you’re so fucking hot.” Then his teeth, his quick little burning tongue, are working along the curve of his ear, making him feel all shivery and feverish at once, and he must make some kind of unacceptable noise because Sol’s hand is over his mouth in an instant. “Can you be a good boy and keep quiet?” He asks softly. 

John nods. The way he says it, all warm and low, the feel of his lips curved against the side of his neck—Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it’s almost too much. Helplessly he humps empty air. Sensing this, Sol presses his thigh up against him, giving him something solid as his fingers graze his waist, ghost his ribs, breeze over his nipples. It’s a tender, hovering chill held in tension against the hot, damp press of his other hand over his mouth, the bruising blaze of his mouth marking up his collarbone. Then his hand floats down to feel for the fly of his pants, working it fumblingly open one-handed. 

Then, Jesus, his hand is actually touching him, his fingers slipping into the slit in his briefs, and—oh, for frick’s sake. In a quick flare of heat he spills all over Sol’s fist. 

Sol flashes a crooked grin, doesn’t seem mad. Grungy as you please he wipes his hands off on his cargo shorts.

“It happens,” he says. “You wanna get a pizza or something and try again?” He leans in closer. “Maybe go somewhere you can make some noise, huh?” And he walks away, confident John will follow.


End file.
